No loss of life.
We evacuated to McAllen/Edinburg, and then Roark and I came back Saturday night. Roak's wife and child and my tweenie came back Sunday.
The barn roof lifted off. Four inch nails still straight - just picked it straight up, crumpled it in a neat ball, and dropped it on the propane tank.
One window in the dining room got broken because the outside ceiling fan "over-rotated", which means it spun until it exploded. Pieces of ceiling fan and glass all over the dining room - easy to sweep up.
The wind was capricious. As a half-mexican, I think its fun to put used and empty, large bean cans on the ends of my wooden fence posts, and then paint them garish colors. One purple can was lifted off. Only one. Isn't that odd?
One of my plastic lawn chairs was tossed over the house's roof, bounced in the front yard, and ended up in the neighbor's pasture.
Lots and lots of tree damage. The twisted live oak at the office lost about half of its limbs - it was all snakey because it was competing with the pecans for light. The long extended limbs couldn't take the beating. Lotta clean up to do in the yard. The pond is full of leaves and branches. The bamboo did well.
We left the horses in the barn, because I thought we might lose the barn roof, and so that was the safest place for them. That worked, but the horses got really traumatized when the roof came off - they are a little spooky. My daughter needs to ride them today to straighten out their heads.
I calculated the wind direction wrong, but got it right when I thought that the barn roof wouldn't come slicing through the air into the barn.
We have no power, and the power company doesn't expect to have power on here for two or three weeks. The main line feeding Danbury lost a dozen or more poles. Snapped off at the base. Lines all over the road. But can't complain, we see their work crews all over the place.
We are on generator. My generator is at Roark's house,Roark's antique needs a new fuel pump and isn't working, and so I borrowed a welder from Butch. Its a dandy generator. Takes diesel too - which is less expensive than gas. Diesel is more expensive by the gallon, but the diesel generator uses one gallon of diesel for every three that my gas powered generator uses. More power too. I think a new diesel generator for this house is on my Christmas list.
The extended family eats here - I have propane. The gas generator keeps the fridge cold at their house,and the fans running, but isn't up to cooking or the HVAC.
This cold weather is a blessing. We just leave the windows open. Don't have to sweat it (that's a pun).
I expect to get "back to work" tomorrow. Because, although we are in the "zone", the rest of the world goes on and isn't particularly empathic.
Only one life lost. My blind, red cap oranda, about 9 inches long, didn't make it. I turned him and "King Richard" - the solid red oranda - loose in the lily pond, because I anticipated a loss of power. King Richard hasn't shown up dead, but "Friday" did. I buried him in the rose garden. He was sick before the hurricane (bladder disorder, probably genetic) and just couldn't handle all the changes.
RIP.
I heard from Brett. He's having trouble with pumping water in the shed, which is really no problem at all - he can always loose the fish back into the ponds. He made it through the storm and is doing well.
